Pozaustawowy kontratyp działania w ramach uprawnień wynikających z prawa do obrony w kontekście nowelizacji art. 233 §1 Kodeksu karnego

• Main Author: Dominika Lapawa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Silesia Press 2018-12-01
• Series: Problemy Prawa Karnego
• Subjects: instances of justification of action; the right to defence; giving false testimony; the actual perpetrator of a crime
• Online Access: https://journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/ppk/article/view/11892
• ISSN: 0208-5577; 2353-9712

The work is devoted to the non-statutory justification of action in the scope of the right to defence, whose purpose was the exclusion of criminal responsibility for giving false testimony by a witness – the actual perpetrator – in his or her case. It was emphasised that the defence which heretofore resulted from Art. 182 and 183 kk was insufficient for the witness. One discussed inter alia the legal basis of the justification, its constituent elements, one indicated the  controversies which were caused by the concept of justification, and which to a great extent were associated with the violation, by the Supreme Court, of the constitutional principle of the tripartite division of powers and with the substantive and temporal limits of the right to defence which result both from the norms of international and domestic law. One indicated the position of the representatives of the doctrine as to the concept of justification. Scholarship on the subject, even though it did not take a uniform stand in reference to the problem in question, basically discerned the necessity of the improvement of the situation of the witness – the actual perpetrator, who, testifying in his or her own case, would run the risk of self-incrimination. The considerations of the doctrine resulted in numerous alternative propositions de lege ferenda. In the work, one suggests to seek such a solution in the substantive approach to the nemo se ipsum accusare tenetur rule. Then it was emphasised that the problem of justification once again became the subject of discussion owing to the amendment issued on 11 March 2016 about the modification of the act of law – The Code of Criminal Procedure and certain other acts of law Art. 233 §1a kk. At that time one penalised the behaviour of a witness, who in fear of criminal liability to be faced by the witness or his relatives gives false testimony or conceals the truth. For the sake of recapitulation, one indicated that the amendment which was described above rendered the justification in question invalid, and the perpetrator who is heard in a court of law as a witness continues de lege lata to be entitled to use the right to refuse to answer the question from Art. 183 §1 kpk. One emphasised that the doctrine recurrently discerned the shortcomings of defence which result from Art. 183 §1 kpk. Above all the institution from Art. 183 §1 kpk was not intended for a witness – the actual perpetrator. Therefore, in the article, in order to realise the warranty nature of the entitlement in question one suggests that this admonishment should be rendered obligatory, so that every witness would be aware that the right exists and that he or she may exercise it.